MILEStones

Here's a weird thing about kids. They change in an instant. You can take them to swim class for a whole year, and they are flailing around in the water and then suddenly one week they are kicking across the pool.

Mia's Aunt Annie gave her a baby doll when she was eight months old. Sorry, Annie, but she has never touched it. She got two more for her first birthday and aside from the occasional wipe of their bottoms hasn't really given them the time of day either. But last weekend we were in Tahoe and she found a baby doll that has been up there for a year or so and suddenly she can't live without it.

And then there's Miles. He loves to do art projects. But inevitably they look the same. He piles on watercolors until they turn a muddy brown. He scribbles until the paper starts to fall apart. Once he did three lines in a circle that he claimed were caterpillars, but nothing that had really resembled, well, anything. Then the other day he was at the table with a magic marker and said "hey Mom, I drew a picture of you." When I looked, I was shocked to see that I had arms. And legs. And feet. Oh yeah, and eyes. And a HUGE nose. And a mouth too! It seemed like overnight that he went from scribbles to actual people.

So the next day I had him draw pictures of his teachers for their birthday cards. And I noticed that he was drawing them upside down (head at the bottom). We always knew he had a different perspective on the world, but this confirmed it for us....